Salome Dancing before Herod | Henri Saada
Henri Saada
- Date1966
- TechniqueOil on canvas
- Size
Salome was the daughter of Herodias and the step-daughter of Herod Antipas, king of Judea. After dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils, Salome asks Herod for the head of John the Baptist, and indeed receives it. The original play Salome was written by Oscar Wilde in French in 1891, when he was staying in Paris and was deeply influenced by the symbolist movement in art and literature; only later in the year was it translated into English. The rehearsals began in London in 1892, but was banned due to Lord Chamberlain’s licensing act, preventing to produce any play which "is not fitting for the preservation of good manners, decorum or of the public peace". Only in 1931, after Chamberlain’s ban was revoked, was the play publicly presented in London for the first time. Until then it was presented in England only in private.
In 1893 the play was published in French and in 1894 in English, and this version was illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, which later influenced the French Art Nouveau. In 1896, while Wilde was in prison, the play was presented in the Comédie-Parisienne in Paris. Richard Strauss saw the play in Berlin in 1902, in Reinhardt’s small theatre, and wrote the opera Salome based on the German translation of the play. The opera premiered in Dresden in 1905.
The scene of Salome and John the Baptist appears frequently in art history, but in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Salome became specially? trendy and popular figure. In her lecture, Dr. Ruth Markus shows how the image of Salome developed into the quintessential image of the Femme Fatale - an archetypical ambivalent woman threatening the man and at the same time seducing him. Markus shows how the image of Salome, which was represented in end-of-the-19th century-art by a virginal, sensual and seductive figure, transformed at the turn of the 20th century into a scathing, sexually cruel and threatening Femme Fatale, influenced by Mallarmé, Flaubert and Wilde, and especially Beardsley’s illustrations to Wilde’s play.
Markus explains the ambivalence of the Femme Fatale image in the context of the 19th century-dread of sexually transmitted diseases, especially syphilis, which coincided with an obsession of the medical profession with satisfying intercourse, a role which, as per the double standard of the time, was preserved not for legal wives but for lovers and prostitutes who might have contracted such diseases. How does one solve the contradiction between necessary sexual satisfaction and a danger of death, between the allure and lust on the one hand, and the fear and disgust on the other? In fact, it remains unsolved. And this conflict is manifested in the Femme Fatale figure.
Another reason for the intensive engagement with the image of the Femme Fatale at the turn of the 20th century: with time she is transformed and becomes the man’s equal, both in her demeanor and her abilities, therefore representing the process of women’s liberation, threatening male hegemony. Thus the image of Salome is replaced by the "new woman", e.g. la garçonne.
Written by Dr. Ruth Markus